Ben Witherington on the Bible and Culture
The Sporting Life-- What Happened to It?
The coarsening of our culture has been going on for a long time, and nowhere is this more in evidence than in sports-- high profile college, and also professional sports. Some of this is because of the seduction of money. Colleges want the revenues that high revenue basketball and football programs make. Even smaller schools have gotten into the act. And lets not even talk about all the illegal recruiting practices and money under the table. The old aphorism, 'cheaters never prosper' seems to be a mythical aphorism at this point. And then of course there is all the preening, trash talking, taunting and the like. Sportsmanship has also gone out the window. Yes, once and while we have a feel good story on ESPN about a girl's softball player who blows out her knee and is carried around the bases by players on the opposing team so she can have her home run. But these stories are rare. Its all about 'win baby win' and often at any cost, especially at the cost of sportsmanship, at the cost of education, at the cost of honesty, and I could go on.
But of course the gold standard for televised bad behavior comes from the NFL, and I am not even talking about the end zone dancing and trash talking... and T.O.ing, if I can coin a phrase. There was once a day where tackle football was tackle football. Any more it is mostly hit them football--- hit them high, hit them low, go head hunting, it doesn't matter. If you don't get caught, who cares. And peoples bodies and indeed even their health can be destroyed. You should meet some of your gridiron heroes when they are 50--- many of them can barely walk. Imagine what would happen if NFL defensive players were required to actually tackle people for the player to be considered down and the play over, as is the case in various forms of rugby? What a concept.
People now go to football games to watch people get knocked silly, or in other words, for the same reason some NASCAR junkies go to the track--- to watch the spectacular crashes, and for the same reason some people go to hockey matches--- hoping a championship wrestling match will break out. And there is something sick about the fascination with watching others get hurt. It's like people who stop by car crashes to see what happened, when they are being of no help or use whatsoever to those who have been harmed.
And then there is the way that money drives the whole enterprise. Have you noticed that there is now only one day in the whole year that there are no major sporting events of any kind---- yes only one. The day after the MLB All Star game in July. That's it. It's gotten so sad that ESPN is even reporting NFL around the year and around the clock in the off season. And then there is the college basketball season that used to have March Madness. Now March Madness starts only after a team has played about 34 games, and March is half over. Soon it will be called April Madness. I just hope they don't start having the selection show on April 1.
So what's my real beef? After all, I am a sports fan, especially for college basketball, and MLB baseball, and a bit of the NFL. My real beef is that unfortunately the difference between winning and losing is money or cheating, or both, in far too many cases. And BTW have you seen the ticket prices at any professional sporting events lately? Of course we could make the whole thing come crashing to a halt, if we boycotted these events massively, and refused to watch sports on TV. Like that's gonna happen.
It has been said that what finally caused the Roman Empire to come crashing to a halt is that people were spending more money on chariot races, gladiator battles, and ever popular barbecuing of Christians, or throwing them to the lions than on necessities. Soldiers no longer wanted to fight in far flung frontiers, investors no longer wanted to invest in foreign assets, they preferred 'out sourcing' (!), and obesity had taken over the elites that controlled 96% of all the wealth. Oh yes, and the Senate couldn't decide anything because legislators were in gridlock and they were on the payroll of major investors....... does this sound familiar????
Someday archaeologists will be digging up the once great American landscape and they will find gigantic concrete sports stadiums, with all sorts of luxury boxes. And then they'll find churches made out of plywood and press board and siding. And homes made out the same thing. And they will ask---- why did they spend more money on entertainment than on food, clothing shelter, and God combined? And in the end----- who won???
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Surrealistic Pillow--- Alice in Wonderland
":One pill makes you smaller, and one pill makes you big....go ask Alice...." Thus went the song 'White Rabbit' on Jefferson Airplane's breakout album Surrealistic Pillow. Of course the album, among other things was celebrating psychotropic drugs, but we have no reason to assume that Lewis Carroll, whose real name was Charles Dodgson ever did so or was under their influence when he wrote his classic stories about Alice. There were in fact two books written under the nom de plume Lewis Carroll about the character Alice---- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and the sequel Through the Looking Glass. These stories, written in the 1860s, were to become enormously popular in their own day, and ever since. Indeed, George MacDonald, the famous Christian fabulist, and his family loved the first of these novellas and encouraged Dodgson to publish it, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Movie adaptations of famous children's stories have a checkered track record to say the least, especially when they are not entirely animated features. Disney of course has had great success with animated features of such stories, but sometimes such adaptations bomb-- think of the recent attempt at adapting the Brother's Grimm's stories to the silver screen. Thus when we were told that Tim Burton, famous for the macabre, was going to take on Alice in Wonderland, I was not sure if this would work. I am here to tell you now.... my apprehensions were unfounded. This movie, especially in 3D is terrific and I am glad to have seen it. A few items of background however are in order.
Alice, aka Alice Kingsley of noble birth, whose father is said to be the entrepreneur Charles Kingsley, has something of a pedigree. The real Charles Kingsley was am amazing man. An English clergyman, but also a novelist who was close friends with George MacDonald, Kingsley was an interesting chap. He was, for instance, one of the first clergymen to praise the work of Charles Darwin. Kingsley was perhaps most well known for writing beloved stories for children, including the famous Water Babies tale. His daughter Mary, as well, became a famous novelist in her own right, though under a male pseudonym. All of this is of some relevance to the portrayal of Alice, for Carroll knew of the work of Kingsley, and it can be no accident that the Alice in Carroll's story bears the Kingsley name and her father is called Charles Kingsley. To his credit, Tim Burton leaves hints at the beginning of this movie about such connections, but leaves us to follow the rabbit trails.... just like Alice herself. But on to the movie.
This movie is really splendidly cast. Kentuckian Johnny Depp is spectacular as the Mad Hatter, complete with faux Scottish accent, Ann Hathaway plays a space cadet version of the white queen, and Helena Bonham-Carter almost steals the show as the bulbous headed Red Queen and Krispin Glover steals your heart as Alice. The movie is worth seeing just to watch the acting of these three stars, but when you throw in all the other characters and wonderful CG animals the movie then offers a cornucopia of earthly delights--- in 3D (watch out for that tea cup heading for your noggin).
The opening in the real world of English aristocracy and a country estate and the closing in the same venue is effective and not over done. Burton is wise enough to get us down the rabbit hole quickly, and on with the adventure in Wonderland. In this regard it will remind one of the first of the Narnia tales, but then C.S. Lewis was surely influenced by the earlier Lewis (for example the Narnia character Reepicheep the heroic mouse is modeled on the mouse in this adventure to some extent).
In regard to the flow and plot of the movie, I disagree with the reviews which suggest that it was somewhat choppy, with individual scenes loosely stitched together. On the contrary, I felt Burton's editing was near perfect and the story flowed quite naturally without diversions or side tracks from one scene to the next. The movie is the perfect length for children to enjoy as well clocking in a one hour and 48 minutes.
In some ways this film's alternative world can be compared to the world of Pandora in Avatar, as the colors are just as brilliant, and the cinematography just as phantasmagorical, only the acting and the plot and the dialogue are far better in Alice than in Avatar. Avatar may be more breathtaking in its recreation of an Edenic world, but Alice's CG and 3D are compelling in their own way. I do not agree with those who say that Burton sacrificed the heart of Carroll's book for the sake of special effects. To the contrary, both the Hatter and Hathaway win your hearts before long in this film. I do however have one complaint---- the Cheshire cat in magneta blue is cast in the wrong hew altogether. And his smile is a bit too devilish as well. On the other hand, the rabbit in his hearts outfit is very fetching indeed.
Here is a movie that the whole family can go to and enjoy. It has enough edge and humor in it to make anyone laugh, but at the same time it has that Perils of Pauline feel of old movies. After a dreary and overlong winter with few movies in the theaters worth watching at all, Alice in Wonderland can only be called the harbinger of spring. The groundhog may have seen his shadow, but when Alice came out of the rabbit hole, she came trailing clouds of glory. Spring is at hand, and this movie will leave you with a spring in your step. Go ask Alice....
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Music that Moves You
It has been said that music is the sound of the soul. If so, some people's souls are over-crowded and just plain noisy. But then there are those who must have pretty sublime souls to judge from their music. In an era when rock and roll may not be dead, but it sure is ailing and waning in impact on the musical scene it is not surprising that the music listening public has turned in other directions for their stimulation. But there are still some artists out there that transcend trends and almost always deliver the goods, and this review is about three of those----- the Dave Matthews Band, Sade, and from the jazz fusion realm, Pat Metheny.
One of the major differences between these artists is that Dave and Pat could be said to be remarkably prolific, keeping product flowing ever year, but not Sade. She has never been "caught up in the star-maker machinery behind the popular song" (to borrow a phrase from Joni). In fact it has been some ten years since the release of Sade's last CD (Lover's Rock). Unlike your prototypical celebrity and rock star she's been staying home raising offspring and enjoying life in Gloucestershire. Good for her. There could hardly be a stronger contrast than Pat Metheny who seemingly is always doing tours on both sides of the Atlantic pond whether with his band or as a solo artist. It is an open question as to whether touring stimulates or stifles one's creative muse.
A very long time ago, in the early 90s, my daughter, a DMB fan, turned me on to an album called Under the Table and Dreaming. I was immediately struck by several things about this artist, who hailed from South Africa but landed and took root in the good ole south in Virginia. First of all he had an interesting but not powerful voice. Secondly, and more strikingly for one who is a musician, his music was rhythmically very interesting. Not for him the standard 4/4 time signatures with verses and chorus. Thirdly, the ensemble of instruments being played and the way they were played made for fascinating listening, and a lot of diversity of sound from song to song. This man was a very creative writer and performer of music, and on top of all that his music had lots of energy and style.
Out of the wreckage that was the death of classic rock and roll, here was an artist who combined jazz, blues and rock influences to good effect. It is not a surprise to me that college students loved his live concerts, and bought his CDs in droves. But in the world of 'what have you done for me lately', recent CDs by DMB have been not up to earlier standards. That is... until now. Dave lost prematurely his close friend and saxaphone player, affectionately called the Groo Grux King, and this CD is an hommage to him. And what a CD it is. Full of fascinating songs, which are full of lyrics about heaven and hell and Jesus Christ and Lying in the Hands of God, and what the afterlife will or won't be like. The ensemble of horns and voice and driving rhythms is infectious. This album is perhaps the best DMB has ever done, and what a fitting tribute to a fallen friend. On the cover of this CD (see above) you have a parade through Mardi Gras land in Nawlins, perhaps a joyful funeral for the sax player. There are so many superb cuts on this CD, but I would commend a listen to Shake me like a Monkey, Why I Am, and especially the coda-- You and Me which was performed on the Grammys.
Of a very different and less raucous ilk is Sade's new Soldier of Love which zoomed immediately to the top of the adult contemporary charts and has stayed there for the last month, backed by appearances on morning and evening TV shows in America. The tour, we are told, will follow. But Sade is not all that big on touring. I don't blame her, since I have some 40 flights a year doing gigs around the country and overseas. It gets tiring. I like to say I like everything about the travel except the traveling.
If you've paid attention to this blog, then you have already seen the video and heard the lead single of this CD Soldier of Love, which is also the title of the CD. Sade at 50 something looks the same, sounds the same, but she is doing some different things these days. The sound of the night club act cranking out jazzy poly rhythms is mostly missing on this CD. Its not Love Deluxe revisited, nor is it Lover's Rock which was a very stripped down bare bones sound. No, this CD has a sweeter sound, a more winsome tone. Basically, other than the title cut you have ballads, with a reggae number thrown in, in the middle. For those who are energy junkies, this is not the CD for you. Go listen to Dave Matthews. But those who like nighttime music which is gentle and yet passionate and soothing, this is a fine CD. Its the sort of music that grows on you rather than jumps out at you. A few of the songs are too brief and not fully realized (Long Hard Road), but the production is good, and some of these songs will add a nice change of pace to a tour where Sade already has plenty of lively tunes. As usual, Sade is singing in minor keys about love and loss (her heart has been hurt, but she's still alive) and in many ways this album is a testimony to perseverance and the indefatigable human spirit. Enjoy.
The third CD being reviewed here is a technological marvel. Pat Metheny has for some time been wanting to see how far the technological revolution could be pushed into the musical realm. The answer at this juncture is---- pretty far. Orchestrion is a CD like no other, in that there is only one performer--- Pat Metheny with his guitars. But in fact his guitars are linked up with a whole bunch of instruments hard wired electronically so that they play in sync with the guitars-- with the sounds of vibes, drums, pianos, horns, etc. Who needs band mates when you've got technology to make you a one man band?
Let me be clear, this is a very different project than using a synthesizer and creating all sorts of sounds via a single keyboard. No, we are talking a plethora of real instruments hooked into the Pat Metheny grid with Pat writing parts for each instrument, programming them, and then hooking them all up together and they play with Pat. In some ways this reminds me of the old one man bands where a single individual would play drums with his feet, have harmonicas and horns hooked on wires in front of his mouth to blow, and he would strum away on a guitar as well. Just watching how this whole process works is probably worth the price of admission for Pat's new tour.
And the music is good. The first and last cuts will remind one of the now classic CD The Way Up which was easily the best jazz fusion CD in recent memory. Not all the material lives up to that standard, but some of it does.
But there is something missing on this CD---- what is it? It is the Zeitgeist, the human spirit of other performers playing ensemble with Pat. One of the great joys of jazz is watching the players interact and improvise on the spot. There can be none of that here... as these instruments have no soul, nor do they respond spontaneously on their own putting their own passion and twists on the tune. No, they simply do what they are programmed to do. It is an interesting experiment, but at the end of the day not one that will replace the Pat Metheny Group in any way, shape, or form. Pat Metheny is a musical genius and one who loves to play with others and let them show their chops, so I do not worry about him going narcissistic on us and simply touring with robotic instruments from now on. The experiment is fascinating, and it will make a contribution to the process of continuing to test the limits of the envelope technologically when it comes to music.... but this album is not The Way Up, and it may be doubted whether it is the Way Forward that all should follow either.
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Jesus' Narrative Thought World and Message
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The Grand Narrative:
The Storied World of Jesus and His Message
Ben Witherington III
Sometimes in the study of the message of Jesus, we have all been guilty of missing the forest due to the over-analysis of interesting individual trees. I am reminded of the famous saying of John Muir the naturalist who once suggested that we look at life from the back side of a beautiful tapestry. Normally what we see are individual loose ends, knots, threads here and there. But occasionally, when the light shines through the tapestry it dawns on us that there is a larger design, a weaving together of darks and lights with purpose, pattern, rich color. My presentation here will focus not so much on individual sayings of Jesus but rather on the storied world, the narrative thought world which generated all of his teachings.
It was G. B. Caird who said that Jesus was the starting point and goal of New Testament theology. He meant this in several ways. For one thing, in the thought world of the earliest Christians there is continuity between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, and between Jesus and the risen Lord. Caird put it this way: "Without the Jesus of history the Christ of faith becomes a Docetic figure, a figment of pious imagination who, like Alice's Cheshire cat, ultimately disappears from view."1 Unfortunately, that happens all too regularly in Christian discussions of Jesus, which is why I am focusing this presentation on an examination of Jesus' narrative thought world, which most
certainly influenced that of his earliest followers, who, like him, were Torah-loving Jews.
It was Caird's view (and I think he is right) that human experience is the point at which
theology is grounded in history. It was the experiencing of the risen Lord or the
experiencing of conversion to Christ that led to the Copernican revolution in the thinking
of those Jews who became Christians after Easter. Later, as Larry Hurtado has shown, it was the worshiping of Christ that led to rethinking his significance and how to tell his story.2 These sorts of things caused the earliest Christians to go back and reevaluate what the historical Jesus had said and done. What sort of worldview had undergirded and been articulated in Jesus' teaching?
1 G. B. Caird, New Testament Theology, compl. and ed. L. D. Hurst (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1994), p. 347.
2On which, see Larry Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003)
Without question, Jesus was one of the great sages of all time, and that included being a great storyteller. Whether we consider his original parables or his creative handling of Old Testament stories, he was quite the improviser, to say the least. He lived out of and spoke into a rich storied world, and he told his own and others' tales in light of the dawning eschatological realities. Not surprisingly, his storied world is populated chiefly by Old Testament figures and stories, alluded to, retold, and recycled in various ways, but also his storied world involves the spinning out of new tales, often in the form of parables or visionary remarks (e.g., "I saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky" [Lk 10:18]).
The function of Jesus' discourse was not merely to inform but also to transform, and that transformation was to involve not merely the audience's symbolic universe but also its behavior, in relationship to God as well as in relationship to each other. In other words, there was both a theological and an ethical thrust to Jesus' teaching. The stories were meant to transform not only the religious imagination of the audience but also their
praxis, giving them samples and examples of how to believe and behave in the light of
the inbreaking dominion of God.
If there is a difference in thrust in the way Jesus articulated his eschatological worldview from that of his predecessor John the Baptizer, it is that Jesus, even in his more apocalyptic sayings, tended to emphasize the good news about the coming of the
dominion on earth. "The object of winnowing is not to collect enough chaff to have a
glorious bonfire; it is to gather the wheat into the granary; the bonfire is purely
incidental."3 Thus, Jesus set about to rescue the perishing and to free Israel from its
various forms of bondage. In this, Jesus is not trying to be Israel, any more than the
Twelve were set up initially to be Israel. All of them were trying to free Israel through a
mission of preaching, teaching, and healing.
11Caird, New Testament Theology, p. 360.
There was, however, urgency and corporate focus to what they did. "The disciples were not evangelistic preachers sent out to save individual souls for some unearthly paradise. They were couriers proclaiming a national emergency and conducting a referendum on a question of national survival."4 The storm of judgment was looming on the horizon for the Jewish faith centered on temple, territory, and Torah. God was intervening in Jesus and his followers before this disaster happened, just as he had already intervened through John the Baptizer. It is this context of social unrest and sense of impending doom that we must keep in view when considering the way Jesus articulates his thought world and the urgency with which he stresses certain things.
This line of discussion raises the issue of the relationship of Jesus to Israel. I suggest that Jesus presents himself not as Israel but rather as the Son of Man, and as the Son of Man, he is Adam gone right. That is, the scope of his messianic ministry is much broader than fulfilling the promise of being the ultimate Son of David restoring Israel and its reign in the Holy Land. That is a part of what Jesus is about, but only a part. The temptation scenes make clear that something more wide-ranging and more cosmic is at stake, for Jesus is tempted as Son of God, not as Israel or Son of David. The issue is what sort of Son of God was Jesus to be. Was it one that comported with his being the true Son of Man of Danielic prophecy or not?
Of course, Jesus spoke to a different audience than did his later Christian followers. Every single one of the New Testament documents is written for Christians, even if in some cases written for Christians to use in some form with outsiders. Jesus, on the other hand, was addressing Jews, even when he was addressing his disciples, and so he was able to presuppose the storied world of the Old Testament as something that he and his audience shared. This perhaps explains why Jesus is able to simply allude to figures such as the queen of the South (Mt 12:41-42 par.), or Noah (Mt 24:36-41), or a widow in Zarephath (Lk 4:26) and expect the audience to know who he meant.
It is no surprise that many of the figures from the past that Jesus speaks of are associated
with judgments past and future, including both the queen of the South and Noah.
4 Ibid., p. 361.
According to Matthew 12:38-40 (cf. Mt 16:1-4; Lk 11:29-32), the only "sign" that a wicked generation would get out of Jesus was the sign of Jonah, that reluctant crisis intervention specialist called upon to warn the people Nineveh of impending disaster if
they did not repent. Jonah 3:4 says that the Ninevites were warned that if they did not
repent, destruction would fall upon them within forty days. Jesus offers a similar warning
in Mark 13, except that the clock is set to forty years. Luke, in his relating of this sort of teaching, makes it all the more explicit that Jesus means the destruction of Jerusalem by human armies, namely, Roman armies (Lk 19:41-44; 21:20-24; 23:27-31).
It is interesting, however, that most of the stories that Jesus told were of his own making, stories about contemporaries and contemporary things, such as the coming of God's eschatological saving activity. As we read through even just the narrative parables, we find anonymous human figures providing examples of various sorts. Only the parable of the rich man and Lazarus presents a story about a named individual human being (Lk
16:19-31). Even more interesting is the fact that God is portrayed as an actor in various of
these parables; he is the owner of the vineyard in the parable of the wicked tenants (Mk
12:1-11), and the forgiving Father in the parable of the prodigal son (Lk 15:11-32). Most
importantly, we discover that Jesus provides an example of how to do theology and ethics
in story form, for these stories are about both divine activity and human responses of
various sorts.
There is also a dark edge to the stories that Jesus tells when it comes to the evaluation of his own people. By this I mean that they are portrayed as lost (see Lk 15), and their leaders as those who reject God's emissaries the prophets and even his Son (Mt 23:29-39). The eschatological situation is portrayed as drastic, with all sorts of unexpected persons trying to race through the narrow gate into the kingdom, while the invited guests have snubbed the host and either refused to come or have come late and without the appropriate attire. Pious Jews are going away from temple prayer unjustified while tax collectors are being accepted. There is some sort of drastic reversal of normal
expectations happening as the dominion breaks into human history, and it does not bode
well for the faithful elder brothers of the family, it would appear. God is busy vindicating
the oppressed, liberating the lost, enfranchising the least and last, and changing the guest
list at the messianic banquet. These are stories about the upsetting of a highly stratified
world, about the changing of the guard, about new occasions teaching new duties, about
both judgment and redemption catching Jews by surprise, and perhaps most of all about
the need for repentance by one and all as God's divine saving activity is happening in
their midst, and yet many are blind to it.
The storied world that Jesus tells of has not only a dark edge but also a strangeness to it. Good shepherds do not normally leave ninety-nine sheep to rescue one straggler. People do not plant a weed such as a mustard bush, as it only attracts the wrong sort of birds and attention. God is not like an unjust judge who has to be forced into vindicating a persistent widow. We could go on. Jesus is offering new perspectives on old images and ideas, and in some cases new perspectives on new vistas and horizons that are coming into view.
N. T. Wright rightly senses what is going on in Jesus' ministry when he says,
The crucial element in his prophetic activity was the story, both implicit
and explicit, that he was telling and acting out. It was Israel's story
reaching its climax: the long-awaiting moment has arrived! . . . To say
"the kingdom of God is at hand" makes sense only when the hearers know
"the story thus far" and are waiting for it to be completed.5
And precisely because Jesus is operating in the Jewish ethos of eretz Israel ("land of Israel"), he can presuppose a storied world context that most of the writers of the New Testament cannot presuppose. This may well explain why indeed we find no parables outside the Gospels. It is because we are no longer speaking into Jesus' specific world, a world where sapiential Jewish thinking with an eschatological twist made sense.
In its own context, then, how would Jesus' articulation of his vision in stories have been
heard? Again Wright helps us:
It would clearly both challenge some prevailing assumptions within that
Jewish context and retain a special focus which would be characteristic
only of Jesus' career, not the work of his post-Easter followers. It must be
set within Judaism, but as a challenge; it must be the presupposition for
the church, but not the blueprint.6
5N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, vol. 2 of Christians Origins and the Question of God
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), p. 226.
6Ibid.
Just so, and this means that it is crucial to get the balance right between continuity and discontinuity when it comes to assessing the storied world of Jesus and of his post-Easter followers. And again, the point of the parables is to reorder the thinking of Jews: "The parables offer not only information, but challenge; they are stories designed to evoke fresh praxis, to reorder the symbolic world, to break open current understandings and inculcate fresh ones."7
A good example to examine closely is the parable of the sower in Mark 4:1-9. Here, as Wright observes, we have the revolutionary notion that Jesus is the person who is bringing the story of Israel to a climax in his own ministry. "If we fail to see how
profoundly subversive, how almost suicidally dangerous, such a claim was," it is because
we have tended to turn Jesus' counter-order wisdom speech into innocuous sermon
illustrations.8 It is right to say that when we are dealing with the narrative parables, we
need to follow the narrative logic of the story, not assume that these are thinly veiled
allegories of history in detail. At the same time, there are allegorical elements in Jesus'
parables, and especially perhaps this one. Modern distinctions between parable and
allegory are not all that helpful when it comes to ancient Jewish storytelling.9 Who, then,
is the sower in this parable? Along with most commentators, I agree that it is Jesus,
assuming a divine role here of planting God's Word about the dominion in surprising as
well as familiar places.
There are some surprising results of following this narrative logic. For one thing, Jesus is not sanguine that most of those who hear him will respond positively in the long term. He is unlike the naïve and overly optimistic preacher of today. But what is perhaps most telling about this parable is that Jesus expects rejection and ephemeral positive responses. He expects too much competition to allow his message to grow in the hearts of many. He expects absolute, hard-hearted rejection. And yes, in the good soil he expects good, long-lasting results.
7 Ibid., p. 229.
8Ibid., p. 235.
9On which, see Ben Witherington III, Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom (Minneapolis: Fortess,
1994); Jesus the Seer: The Progress of Prophecy (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999).
This is an odd message for a person who saw himself in a messianic light, as one who had come to rescue Israel from disaster. In a sense, it is a message about the end of one thought world and the unexpected beginnings of another out of the ashes of the first one. In Jesus' view, his world is hell-bent, not heaven bound, and he, like John the Baptizer, is here to try to rescue a few of the perishing before the dark night of judgment falls. This parable differs considerably from the one in Mark 12:1-11 about the wicked tenants, as that is a commentary on Jewish leadership in the vineyard, not about the state of the Jewish vineyard in general. But both parables presuppose that things are coming to a climax, and that God's last-ditch efforts to rescue his people are culminating in the
ministry of Jesus, who seeks to reclaim God's land, his vineyard, before it produces
nothing but the grapes of wrath.
Along with Wright, I think that the aforementioned parables in Mark 4 and Mark 12 would have been seen as echoing or alluding to Isaiah 5-6. In this light, there can be no question but that the vineyard is Israel, and Jesus sees himself as fulfilling a prophetic
role like that of Isaiah, dealing with hard-of-hearing Israel. But what is most telling when
we closely read Isaiah 5-6 and then think of these two parables of Jesus is that already in
Isaiah the theme of impending judgment and the exile of God's Jewish people is clear. In
this context, the use of parables reflects and indeed presupposes the hard-heartedness of
the audience and their refusal to listen. They will not hear and understand unless they turn
or repent. Listen to some of Isaiah's Song of the Vineyard: "What more could have been
done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it
yield only bad? Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take
away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall and it will be
trampled" (Is 5:4-5). The song is a lament that goes on to bemoan the injustice and
bloodshed in Israel.
Here is where I say that this all comports nicely with Jesus' prediction of the demise of the temple and Jerusalem in Mark 13. In Jesus' view, as his prophetic sign-act in the temple showed, this temple was the temple of doom, one that God would judge within a generation. And indeed, exactly one biblical generation after Jesus died in A.D. 30 the temple fell in Jerusalem to the Romans. Jesus was no false prophet any more than Isaiah was in regard to the demise of Jerusalem and exile in his own era. In light of all this, it is interesting that the later Christian followers of Jesus not only continued to evangelize Jews and see God as promising them much, but also, as a text such as Romans 11 shows, continued to believe that God, though he might temporarily break off Jews from his people who did not accept Jesus as their messiah, would not replace an unresponsive Jewish people with a more responsive Gentile one. This is surprising only to those who do not know the regular pattern in the Old Testament prophetic oracles of redemption of Israel after and indeed as a result of judgment on Israel (see, e.g., Hosea, Amos, and, of course, Isaiah). Perhaps most radically and paradoxically, Jesus was suggesting in Mark 4 that God's radical rescue of his people would come not by means of military action or a warrior-messiah but rather through the call and response of Jesus' preaching of the good news.
This brings us to the other seed parables in Mark 4. Jesus seems to think that there will be some "seedy" characters, indeed some characters that Jews would consider "for the birds" (cf. Dan 4:20-22) in the dominion, to the surprise of the long-time dwellers there. Hence, Jesus tells the parable of the mustard seed--a seed that no Jewish farmer would ever plant in a garden. The parable of the mustard seed is a parable of contrast between small beginnings and large, if noxious and surprising, outcomes, but it is also a parable that tells us what sort of persons were going to end up in the vineyard: the wild birds from afar, which should probably be seen as an allusion to Gentiles.
The parable of the seed growing secretly tells us something about the method by which the dominion is coming: secretly, under the radar, without a lot of human effort and certainly without violence. This parable can be fruitfully compared to the parable of the leaven in the dough (Mt 13:33 // Lk 13:20-21) in that both suggest a sort of automatic
process, one without human aid that produces the result. The hiddenness theme is also
evident in parables of the pearl of great price and the treasure in the field (Mt 13:44-46).
There are apocalyptic overtones to all these parables as they emerge from a world of
opacity, of secrets that require teasing the brain into active thought to figure out, of God
producing a crop and a harvest or a treasure as if by sleight of hand. The harvest theme is
a dead giveaway that Jesus believed that the eschatological scenario was already in play.
And here precisely is where I differ strongly with Wright. These are not parables about
return from exile. If anything, they are parables about the surprising presence of God's
saving activity in the midst of occupation and oppression in the Holy Land, a very
different message indeed. Jesus did not come to meet the audience's messianic
expectations; he came to meet their needs. But ultimately, that task could be
consummated only through a sacrifice on a cross and its sequel. Redemption would not
come on the cheap or even just by a spiritual revival of good preaching accompanied by
some miracles. The sin problem would not be dealt with or overcome by those means
alone. And this brings us to another crucial point.
Did Jesus tell stories about himself? One could argue that Jesus appears in some of the parables. For example, in Mark 4 he seems to be the sower and in Mark 12 it seems clear enough that he is the Son who is rejected, killed, and thrown out of the vineyard. We could perhaps also suggest that in the parables of the lost sheep he is the shepherd, or in the parable of the lost coin he is the woman seeking the coin (see Lk 15:3-10). But these parables in the main are not about the king Jesus; they are about the coming of the
kingdom of God.
When Jesus referred to himself, he chose a phrase that we do not find in any of the
parables: the "Son of Man." A close examination of his use of this term shows that at
least a good bit of the time he is alluding to the story of that enigmatic "one like a son of
man" in Daniel 7:13-14, the one who would be given a kingdom by God and would rule
and judge the earth forever. This is especially clear in a saying such as that in Mark
14:62, but it is also in evidence in other Son of Man sayings, even in the Johannine
tradition (see Jn 1:51; 3:13; 8:28).
Jesus, it appears, exegeted his own career, purpose, existence, and importance out of various Old Testament stories, and I suggest that this influenced the various christological hymns that his earliest followers created after Easter. The link between the proclaimer and becoming the one proclaimed becomes clearer when we realize that Jesus also exegeted himself out of the story of Wisdom. This is especially clear in various places in Matthew 11, especially Matthew 11:19, where Jesus calls himself Wisdom directly. Then too we must point to a text such as Mark 12:35-37, where Jesus cleverly intimates in his interpretation of Psalm 110 that the messiah is in fact not just David's son, but even greater than that, he is David's lord; and in either case he is alluding to himself here. Jesus himself, then, provided the catalyst for interpreting and exegeting his significance out of the prophetic and wisdom literature of early Judaism.
Jesus is not merely telling a story or carrying a story already in play forward to its logical climax. This becomes quite clear in, for example, his "yoke" saying (Mt 11:28-30), where it is Jesus' yoke that his disciples are to take upon themselves with rigor and vigor, not the yoke of the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law, having been fulfilled in the Christ event, would not provide the ethical script for all Christian conduct going forward; rather, the law of Christ would do so. Of course, this would be confusing because some elements of the Mosaic law would be renewed or reaffirmed or intensified by Christ--for example, the Great Commandment--and thus would be part of the binding contract known as the new covenant. But Christ's followers would do these things because they were part of Christ's yoke, which he commanded his disciples to take up, called, paradoxically, a light burden. They would not merely continue the story of obedience (and disobedience) of Israel to Moses' law.
However subversive or paradoxical the later Christian message may have seemed or have been, and however much they may have relied on Jesus' message, even his message about himself, Christian preachers did not by and large follow Jesus' methodology of preaching. They told the story straight. Partly, this had to do with ethos and social context, since most audiences outside Israel were not well schooled in Jewish sapiential literature. Partly also, however, this had to do with the change in symbolic universe from before to after the death and resurrection of Jesus. The proclaimer had become the universally proclaimed, and this because of the way his life turned out. Apparently, it was felt that the message about a crucified and risen messiah was paradoxical enough in itself, and required enough explaining in itself, that an evangelistic religion needed to tell the story in a clear and straightforward way. While some of the themes of the "good news" song and part of the tune remained the same, the lyrics needed to be less enigmatic and more singularly focused on Jesus himself and his redemptive work.
It was the Frenchman Alfred Loisy who famously once said, Jesus preached the Kingdom, but it was the church that showed up. What Loisy did not really grasp, it would appear, is that what Jesus was preaching was the divine saving intervention of God through his own ministry and that of his disciples, and in this sense, it certainly did show up both during and after the life of the historical Jesus. Without the coming of the Son of Man there would have been no Good News of the Kingdom, and without his death, resurrection and return, there would be no completion to the arc of the story Jesus believed he was living out of--- the story in Daniel 7 of the one like a Son of Man who came down from heaven to rule forever on earth, and to be worshipped by every tribe and tongue and people and nation. In Daniel 7 we see the harmonic converge in the key elements in Jesus' message--- kingdom of God and Son of Man, and it was, and is, and ever shall be only the latter that brings the former on earth, as it is in heaven.
I would like to close with a story. Shelly Jackson , a gifted contemporary writer, has set out on a remarkable project to in-flesh a story of hers, quite literally. The story has 2,095 words and is entitled 'Skin'. She has asked for volunteers from all over the world to have exactly one word of the story tattooed on some readily visible part of their skin. Clearly Shelly is unfamiliar with some of the exhortation in the Torah. She has not only had some takers, she has had more takers than she needs to tell this story in the flesh, to incarnate this story on living human beings.
What if the message of Jesus can only be truly and fully understood, not only when it is set in the larger context of Jesus' own narrative thought world, but when it is incarnated in us, and only together as a living group can we make sense of it, with each one of us having but one piece of the puzzle to contribute to that understanding of the story? What if the message of Jesus can only be understood and believed when it is experienced and lived out in koinonia, in community, in love, in self-sacrifice, in service to others?
I suspect that since Hurricane Katrina, those of you who live in New Orleans and have participated in the recovery efforts may well have gotten a glimpse of how true that is. We are not, or at least ought not to be, merely witnesses as the saints go marching in. Rather we have or should become part of 'that number' part of the Grand Narrative, a story in which we become what we admire, we become like the one we emulate, and so when the story is lived out through us we come to understand and believe in the Son of Man and his Kingdom, and so reflect his indelible image, renewed in us.
This is a consummation devoutly to be wished--and it's about as probable as the Saints winning the Super Bowl so that the Mardi Gras parade could transpire twice in two weeks. Oh wait--- that just happened! In sum, "Who dat saying Jesus' story can't be true and can't be replicated in his saints? Not me for sure, as I believe the message that the least, last and lost can become the first, most and found because of Jesus.
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The Message of Jesus--New Orleans Baptist Forum
The Greer-Hurd Forum was an outstanding success this years, thanks to all the hard work of Bob Stewart pictured at the far right on the bottom row of this picture. Excellent papers were presented by Amy Jill Levine from Vandy (on my left), and the dialogue with John Dominic Crossan (on my right in the picture) went very well. It was respectful and considerate, and even though we strongly disagreed on some things the dialogue Friday night went well. Further excellent papers were given by Darrell Bock (top row far right), and by Craig Evans (middle of the top row) and by Stephen Patterson the Gospel of Thomas expert (top left). There were probably 600 or so in attendance, and the quality of both the scholarly dialogue and many of the questions from the audience was high. And a good time was had by all. I went to the Yes concert at the House of Blues Thursday night and we went to some fabulous restaurants almost every night, including my favorite--- Brennan's Palace Cafe which had the painting of New Orleans famous musicians on the upstairs walls.
See if you can find my fellow North Carolinian Dizzie Gillespie in the picture above.
In this picture there are more familiar faces.... Louis Armstrong, Harry Connick Jr. Dr. John Wynton Marsalis and more. The crawfish etouffee and the crabmeat quiche and the pecan crusted flounder were out of this world... not to mention the white chocolate bread pudding.... more repenting from such eating is now required.
I preached twice, once in chapel at New Orleans Baptist Seminary and once this morning at Edgewater Baptist Church (which four years ago was Underwater Baptist Church). New Orleans is making a remarkable comeback, and not just because of the Saints. I also picked up dollar bills with Drew Brees' picture on it---- cause he is MONEY in Nawlins these days.
If there were some important trends in the papers given at this conference they were that history and archaeology and understanding the social context of Jesus matter, matter enormously if you actually want to understand the man. And it was made clearer than ever that Jesus knew how to both comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. I will published a draft of my lecture in the next post.
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The Message of Jesus--- a Discussion at New Orleans Baptist
http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.baptistmessage.com/node/6088&ct=ga&cd=20uTuQw7uKg&usg=AFQjCNE0o1UUurO3zB6Ml6smU3-Xh8z_kQ
I will be preaching in chapel at New Orleans Baptist on Thursday and speaking at New Orleans Baptist this Friday. John Dominic Crossan and I will be discussing the actual message and meaning of Jesus. Above is a link to the full program. Ya'll come.
BW3
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The Earliest Temple in the World
Eastern Turkey is a fascinating place, and increasingly it is being recognized as one of the cradles of ANE civilization. We now have considerably more grist for that mill with the announcement of the discovery of a Temple 11,500 years old. Yes, you heard me right, and you can see a picture of one of its remarkable monoliths and a wall as well. The site is called Gobeckli Tepe, a whimsical name which meas Potbelly Hill, due to the shape of the mound, and it is near two sites where Mark Fairchild and I have spent time in recent years--- Shanliurfa and Haran (of Abraham fame). This temple lies west of the Biblical plain called Haran and is only 20 miles from the Syrian border. This places it right in the fertile crescent which begins below modern day Iraq, includings the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and winds its way north through Syria and into eastern Turkey. This is the world not only of Genesis, but of the great Anatolian civilization of the Hittites (yes those Hittites as in Uriah the Hittite-- husband of Bathsheba). In short, if you are wondering if this is important to understand the OT, wonder no longer. It is.
Klaus Schmidt and his team of Kurdish diggers have uncovered an enormous temple complex that pre-dates the Great Pyramids by some 7,000 years and Stonehenge by at least 6,000 years! Yes, you heard me right. The evidence suggests this would have been one of the first substantial buildings built after the last major Ice Age on earth. Klaus in fact calls this whole complex of structures the Rome of the Ice Age. What is included?
First of all there are circles of polished stones, some are 17 feet high,. with flooring and and double benches where people could sit. Each of these stone circles feature a huge T-shaped stone like the one depicted above. In this respect these stones are like the ones on Easter Island. After 12 years of hard work, Schmidt has found at least four temple complexes. The radar scans of the area indicate there is a huge amount more to uncover here. And Schmidt has a thesis about this temple complex--- here is a short excerpt from the Newsweek article on this---
"Schmidt's thesis is simple and bold: it was the urge to worship that brought mankind together in the very first urban conglomerations. The need to build and maintain this temple, he says, drove the builders to seek stable food sources, like grains and animals that could be domesticated, and then to settle down to guard their new way of life. The temple begat the city." Here is the link to the entire article which you can cut and paste into your browser.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/233844
The importance of this find for Biblical thinking is this--- the Bible says that from the outset, human beings were created in God's image. Human beings were religious creatures from Day One. Archaeologists and sociologists have long dismissed this theory saying organized religion comes much later in the game than the beginning of civilization and city building. As Ian Holder director of Stanford's prestigous archaeology program says--- this is a game changer. Indeed, it changes everything experts in the Neolithic era have been thinking. Schmidt is saying that religion is the cause of civilization, not the result of it. Towns were built to be near the Temple complex. Agriculture was undertaken to feed those living there and supply the temple complex, and so on. The first instincts of humans were to put religion first. Maybe there is more to that Genesis story than some have been willing to think or admit. Maybe human beings are inherently homo religiosis.
Schmidt says that about half of the 50 stones thus far unearthed have carvings on them--- half. This makes this site very different from Stonehenge. While we have lots of animal carvings on these stones, and a few abstract symbols what you also find is human hands and arms-- the T shape stones seem in some cases to be representations of humans praying, "In the Bible it talks about how God created man in his image," says Johns Hopkins archeologist Glenn Schwartz. Göbekli Tepe "is the first time you can see humans with that idea, that they resemble gods." This site pre-dates the earliest Biblical ruins, of Jericho, by 1,000 years or more.
Why have we not heard of this before now? Several reasons. First, because it is so huge and so significant that it will change all the textbooks on such matters, and archaeologists have been wanting to be sure of the dating and significance and nature of the site. The site was actually found by an American in the 1960s.. but it was so huge he didn't know what to make of it. Schmidt also almost walked away when he realized the enormity of what lay under the ground. He knew he would have to spend the rest of his life digging if he stayed. And he has done so. Only 5% of this site has thus far been dug. This will make the dig at Pompeii look tiny. Whatever civilization was founded here, it ended abruptly about 8,000 B.C. and in fact the site was deliberately buried then. Many of the massive stones have been found in place, still standing upright where they had been originally placed. The site was not destroyed, it was buried. There is much more to be done here, but suffice it to say, that religion and art are at the very heart of this temple complex. And that tell us a lot about the nature of primitive humans--- a lot like what Genesis tells us as well.
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A Holy Discontent
( Overview of Nicea (Iznik), and its beautiful lake, on the shore of which the Council of Nicea was held in 325 A.D.)
So much of pop psychology these days is all about encouraging you to 'accept yourself as you are'. The intent was noble enough to counteract self-destructive feelings, attitudes, behaviors, but the net effect of such counsel seems usually to have been to tell already narcissistic self-centered people living in a 'me first' culture it's o.k. to stay exactly the way they are. This is like saying sick 'em to a pit bull. It just encourages us to not face the reality that we are not all that we ought to be and various aspects of our behavior, and probably of our beliefs, especially about ourselves, need to change. What I want to discuss in this post is cultivating a healthy and holy discontent with how we are and what we are, but not who or whose we are. Lent is certainly the time to talk about cultivating a sense of holy discontent. But first let us talk about the positive side of the equation.
The Bible
is emphatic that every person is created in God's image and as such is a person
of sacred worth simply because of how they have been created. The worth doesn't come from what is
accomplished after birth, whether little or large, it is inherent to who we
are. Furthermore, from a Christian
point of view, again, for those who are new creatures in Christ, being renewed in
the image of Christ himself, we are to
see ourselves as already, because of God's work in us, beings of sacred worth. Again, the worth does not come after the birth
from doing, but rather from being. We do not cease to be persons of sacred
worth just because we do not measure up to some standard in regard to doing or
behaving, we are inherently of such worth. If you reflect for a moment on the horrors of
the Holocaust in WWII what supposedly gave Nazis permission to persecute,
prosecute and execute Jews is because the propaganda was they were sub-human,
beneath the dignity of the master race.
This word just in--- the only master race is the one the Master ran to
redeem us all. The human race is the 'master' race according to Gen. 1-- we were called to fill the earth, subdue it, tend it, care for it, and rule over it gently and in godly fashion. We are mini-creators, and mini-governors modeled after the Creator. But there is another dimension to all this.
"God so loved the world...." can not
be reduced to God so loved the elect, whether that is an ethnic, racial, or
theological category of truncation. If
a person is combating feelings of low self-worth or the like, it is because he
or she has believed the Orwellian lie of our culture--"we are all equal, except
some are more equal than others". Or, if they live in a workaholic environment--'the
doers, especially the successful doers are more equal than the rest". Even the American credo of Martin Luther
King, where he longed for people to be judged not on the basis of the color of
their skin but on the basis of the content of their character, while preferable
to racism, does not get to the heart of the matter.
The heart of the matter is that God created us in the divine image, pronounced this creation of humans good, and when Christ came he came to redeem and restore and renew that image in us--- which again is a work of God in the soul of a human being. It's not a human accomplishment. Those who consider themselves self-made 'men' or 'women' have drunk the narcotic laced Koolaide of our culture and have believed its great lie. There are no self-made persons--- only creatures of God. Even from a humanistic point of view we all are deeply indebted to and stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before, who have taught us, loved, us, helped us, given us opportunity, and so on. Go read John Donne's poem about 'no one is an island...'
But what about this matter of Holy
discontent with what we are and what we have so far done? Paul puts it
succinctly in Romans--- "we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of
God", a glory which we once reflected much more adequately before the
Fall. In a culture already prone to be
glory grabbers instead of glory givers, how do we become less narcissistic
people, even as devout Christians?
First, I would say that we must not listen to the siren voices of pop
psychology and the like which encourage us to settle, to be satisfied with the
way we are, especially when it comes to our behavior. On the contrary, we should wake up every
morning realizing we are not all we ought to be. We have not yet arrived.
St.
Paul puts it well--- "not that I have already
obtained all this (i.e. perfection, full
maturity, becoming Christ like, the resurrection etc.) or have already arrived
at my final goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ took
hold of me. Brothers and sisters I do not consider myself yet to have taken
hold of it. But one thing I do.
Forgetting what is behind and straining forward towards what is ahead, I press
on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in
Christ Jesus." (Phil. 3.12-14).
Now we have gotten to the nub of the matter. Paul is talking about doing, a doing which leads to the right end. He expresses his holy discontent not with his circumstances, not with his situation, not with his mortal frame, not with how God made him, but with the fact that he has not yet arrived where God ultimately wants him to be in his life. Indeed, none of us have done so, who are still alive and breathing on terra firma. Paul is not berating himself in a way that either denigrates or denies what God has made him to be, or what Christ has already accomplished in him. But a holy discontent forgets what lies in the past and press on with the upward call of doing better, and in the end being all that we were meant to be. We are meant to be a restless people until we find our final rest in Him, until we reach the goal. And here is what this means.
We should never be satisfied with sinning, or be tolerant of misbehavior in ourselves. We should be profoundly peeved with ourselves about such things. We should never be satisfied with giving God less than our best, or being satisfied with where we are in life's journey. The thing about a journey is its not over until it's over. Otherwise you are either making forward progress, as Paul describes or you are not. And notice how he stresses that we need the commitment, the will, the effort, and the discipline to be like an Olympic athlete pressing forward toward the goal, straining every muscle to reach the proper finish line, and receive the crown of victory.
I was watching the Olympics last
night, in particular watching Lindsey Vonn, and then listening to her talk
about the discipline, and perseverance through pain that allowed her to win the
gold medal. You could say she was a
driven person, but she was the first to admit that she was hurdling down a huge
precipitous mountain slope at 70 some miles an hour and was always an inch away
from disaster until she crossed the finish line. The difference between winning and losing was being able to keep it together and not go off course or crash.
Coming down the mountain
of life is about staying within the lines and not crashing as much as it is anything
else. Its about keeping it together and
keeping on going towards the goal. And
it took every ounce of effort, determination, training, guts, you name it, to
get Lindsey there. She was exhausted at the end, but jubilant. St. Paul
was talking about the same thing. The
first step in setting out on the journey towards the finish line is developing
a holy discontent, not with whose you are or who you are in God, but with where you are, what you've done thus
far, and where you need to get to in order to receive the divine approbation "well
done good and faithful servant, inherit the prize". We must weary ourselves in well doing.
My grandfather was a remarkable Christian--- a good ole Southern Baptist. When I was young and visiting at his house in Wilmington N.C. one day I asked him why he was such a straight arrow--- always going to church, being the fire chief of the fire department, hand counting ballots for free as a public service, working with charitable causes for the Shriners. His reply to me was memorable--- "Hell is too hot, and heaven too sweet to mess around in this life. God wants my best." Now there was a man who knew where he wanted to go, knew how to get there, and was straining every muscle as he pressed on towards the goal. Even saints need a little holy discontent so they will not rest on their laurels, or indeed rest prematurely, or settle for less than full conformity to the image of Christ. Think on these things.
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'Crazy Heart'--- Bad Blake, Tiger Woods, and Others
I watched the mea culpa of Tiger Woods this morning, all 14 or so minutes of it. It was definitely the material of a country song. I am glad Tiger has begun to own his problems and misbehavior, though frankly I am not sure immoral behavior qualifies as a disease--- 'sex addiction', in the same way alcoholism is a disease. More likely its obsessive compulsive narcissistic behavior. But it is a good thing Tiger has begun to come clean, and he is right to try and protect his family from the vultures in the press, who frankly do not have a right to his full confession, nor should they be hounding his family. But then if enough of us would profoundly protest to the media that we don't want to see or hear about such garbage, maybe the feeding frenzy when it comes to dirty laundry would slow down. It is after all ratings and money that drives such soap opera materials on the TV, and so ultimately some of us are a huge part of the problem. I wrote a little ditty on the blog earlier this week called Grave Diggers about the paparazzi. I suspect about now Tiger would pronounce the Amen to that poem. But the Tiger Woods real life saga in various strange ways parallels the Bad Blake saga recounted in the recent movie Crazy Heart, about which this post will now reflect.
If you saw
the movie 'the Wrestler' the plot of 'Crazy Heart' is by now familiar. Broken down old entertainer tries for
comeback, reconciliation with family member, etc. with an ending that suits a
country song. Only Crazy Heart has far more star power-- Jeff Bridges, Colin Farrell
(as a country singer??? Who would have
believed it?) Robert Duvall (a producer
of the film), and a winsome Maggie Gyllenhaal. And shoot, the country tunes
aren't half bad, and occasionally Jeff Bridges shows he can sing them. But his dissolute life of drinking and
smoking and playing dirty bars and bowling alleys is not appealing at all. I must admit that I had not envisioned the 'So
Cal' Dude being able to pull off a Waylon Jennings thing, but then, he is a
good actor, and frankly he deserves his Oscar nomination for best actor in this
film. It is that believable and well
done.
The movie has already been well
reviewed but here there is some room for reflection about what love can do to
you--- it can even make you want to clean up your act and clean up your life as
well. And in this case.... it does finally
motivate Bad Blake to do so. But even a
love that sets you free may not produce a happy ending after so much
misbehavior over so long a period of time.
The attempt at reconciliation with a long lost son fails..... and what
Blake mainly gets out of his rehab besides a new lease on life is more fodder for
his country songs.
Bad also gets in some apt digs at
the current MOR half rock, half pop, half country products that come out of
Nashville and its star maker machinery. Take
for example Taylor Swift. That girl can't
sing worth a dime... and they have turned her into star instead of a pretty good
song writer. She embarrassed herself
singing with Stevie Nicks on the Grammies a few weeks ago, being way out of
tune, and she embarrassed herself before that on a show in January. She needs some seasoning, and a reality check
just like Bad Blake. As they say down in
the country--- she ain't no Carrie Underwood, if we are talking about her
singin' ability. And I'm not talking
about having an operatic voice, I'm just saying that even within the parameters
of what counts as good country singing, live and in color, she can't deliver. She needs some voice lessons....etc.
Like a country song, this post has wandered a bit,
but after a surprising chorus its time to return to the main tune. Country songs deal with real life, including
its worst and most immoral aspects. No
one asks for them not to do so. That would be like asking a Bluesman like B.B. King
to stop playing in minor keys. Lost love
and lonesomeness and squandered opportunities are the stock and trade of such
music. But just because its real, doesn't
make the actions described worth emulating or admiring.
Tiger Woods is now living a soap opera instead of living his dream. Let's hope and pray that he keeps going forward in the right direction. He said something profound at his press conference that Bad Blake could have stood to hear---- when money and fame come your way, you begin to mistakenly believe you are special, and that the regular rules of life and love and morality don't apply to you. You begin to believe what your sychophants tell you is true, and so you believe you can get away with anything, with no accountability. But frankly, sin always has consequences, negative consequences, and what a person does when he thinks no one is watching and when he thinks he is bullet proof, most reveals that person's character---- whether you're Bad Blake, or Tiger Woods. The good news is--- grace happens, if you know where to find it.
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Grave Diggers
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They know how to shovel that stuff
The dirt and the mud and the grime,
They're probing for a shady character
Or just another citizen to slime.
They'll bury your reputation
After poking around in your past
Occasionally they will be quite fawning
But don't worry, it won't last.
No matter how seldom you've slipped
Or how often you're in the right
If they find any metal that's tarnished
They'll bring it into the light.
They'll hound you for juicy tidbits
Or sleazy and salacious details
Not enough the wages of sin
On the pen of the press your impaled.
They'll measure you for a casket
They'll assess your body-- of work
They'll find a fitting epitaph
'Here lies a world class jerk'
They hang around in graveyards
They comb the catacombs
They're birds of prey, like vultures
They'll follow you where ere you roam.
Life's a grave undertaking
For those who feast on your falls
And make their own reputation
By describing your burial pall.
The dismissal can be quite brief,
The interment takes no time at all
But if you should rise from the dead
You'll find they won't be appalled.
For it gives them more work to do,
More fodder for their sod farm
They'll tell you they are happy to see you
And of course they meant you no harm,
So here's to the political pundits
The shock jocks and tabloiders too
Not to mention personal injury lawyers
Who know how to manipulate you.
They've made their names off your misfortune
But there's too little grace in that Nancy
They'll fillet and barbecue you slowly
'Would you like it slow-cooked or fancy?
But what's even more disturbing
Are the grave diggers many fans
The morbid lust for blood
Makes grave diggers ratings quite grand
They stop to look at the accident
The victim lies sprawled on the road
They're curious to see if you've croaked
Like another road-killed toad
I wonder what layer of Hades
Dante'd reserve for these folks?
The grave diggers annual roasting
Where they are the butt of the jokes.
Why is it that those ole flame-throwers
Have trouble taking the heat
They're good at claiming a victory
When they've retold your defeat
I'm thankful I'm not a grave digger
Nor even one of their fans,
I'd rather die on the cross
Like that ole Son of Man
BW III Jan 22 2010
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Lent-- and the Decline of Church Attendance of the Young
We have begun the Lenten season today. The word comes from the English term lengthen, referring to the season of the year where we have the lengthening of the days. The church has made this a season of prayer, fasting, repentance, reflection in preparation for Easter. In some church traditions, there would be no weddings or other sorts of celebrations held during this time in order to focus on penitential practices and getting one's life in order, and one's relationship with God back in shape. If you would like to see some of the Beliefnet features on Lent here is a link to a Lenten calendar and quizzes----http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/Lent/Lent-Calendar.aspx and here is a link to some suggestions about Lenten fasting---http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/Lent/Ways-to-Fast-for-Lent.aspxand finally here is a link for more content on Lent----http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/Lent/Lent.aspx.
My concern in this post however is with the latest Pew Forum on Religious Life which suggests that young adults are less likely to go to church than they used to be. Dividing up the time period as follows-- Greatest Generation (born before 1928), Silent Generation (born 1928-45), Baby Boomers (1946-64), Gen. X (1965-80), and Millenials (born after 1980), the survey says that when asked whether they have any religious affiliation or not only 5% of the Greatest Generation, 8% of the Silent Generation, 13% of Baby Boomers, 20% of Gen Xers, and 26% of Millenials say they have no religious affiliation. This of course does not mean they do not believe in God, nor does it mean that they may not be 'spiritual' or 'religious' in various ways. The survey is basically measuring self-identification when it comes to more traditional forms of being religious. For example, only 18% of Millenials say they attend worship nearly every week or more often, 21% of Gen Xers, and 26% of Boomers. Does the situation change as Millenials and Gen Xers get older? Its too soon to tell about Millenials and most GenXers but if we judge by Baby Boomers in the 1970s 39% of Boomers said religion was very important to them, but by 2000 some 60% of them said so. Or again 47% of Boomers asked in 1980 said they prayed every day, but in 2005 some 62% said so.
One of the real problems with this type of survey is that the word 'religion' in the new millenium has become something of a dirty word or at least a less preferred term in various circles. You often here people say 'I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious' by which is usually meant not involved with organized traditional religion of some kind. This kind of survey however does not adequately take into account what I will call 'sheep shift'. What has happened, especially with the growth first of megachurches and then of Emergent Churches of various sorts, is 'sheep shift' not decline in church attendance. More of the young are going to alternative worship experiences instead of traditional ones, although a good number of post-modern kids prefer worship that actually has liturgy and sacraments and some mystery involved as opposed to the happy clappy praise crowd.
'Sheep shift' however, it should be remembered is not church growth if we are talking about the church as a whole. The fact that large churches are gaining members regularly tells us more about sheep shift, and declining loyalty to denomination brand names than it does about over all decline in worship attendance. My own anecdotal survey of things shows the following trends: 1) as rural and small town areas decline in population and the young move to cities where there are jobs, it is perfectly understandable that churches will shrink and close; 2) urban churches in older downtown areas that have not gone through urban revitalization and are not near to the increasing number of condos for 'Yurbs' (young urban condo dwellers) tend to experience decline along with their environment; 3) church plants in suburban areas of big cities tend to do much better, except that what they are mostly capitalizing on is the increasing willingness to change churches 'to find a better fit' for one's self or family. When it comes to the young much depends on the social networking, the programs available and the degree of aggressiveness in recruiting; 4) because of the increasing application of the consumer mentality and 'star' mentality of our culture to the church, people pick churches like they pick new cars-- they are attracted to the shiny popular ones, with the charismatic pulpiteer or music program, or adult and young programs etc. I have commented at length with the problems these sorts of approach to worship bring with them in my new book We Have Seen his Glory now available on Amazon.
What this survey reminds us of, just in time for Lent, is that the church cannot afford to be either a glorious anachronism nor unresponsive to the cultural situation in which it finds itself, if it wants to continue to recruit new members, especially among the young. I am simply waiting for the day for the cellphone church, where everyone is encouraged to bring their cellphone, dial up their favorite praise song, and instead of singing all play it simultaneously while holding up their phones towards the altar! Or perhaps we could have a twitter service where during the sermon, the young are being tweated or texted repeatedly by the youth ministers while the sermon is going on, with more 'relevant' content for millenials in the appropriate jargon.
What is clear is that the general American culture is no longer strongly supportive, or in some cases, even tolerant of orthodox and traditional Christianity. Unless the American church recaptures the spirit and modus operandi of the church in Acts, which was a missionary movement that also did discipleship on the side, rather than being a nurture institution that has a mission committee, we can expect these sorts of gloomy trends to continue in this country. Perhaps we could start a new slogan---- 'I'm not spiritual, I'm saved'. Below you will find an Ash Wednesday sermon of mine.
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ASH WEDNESDAY--MORTALITY AND IMMORALITY
Text: Lk. 18.9-14
The term Lent comes from the English word Lenten which in turn comes from the English word lengthen, referring to the season of the lengthening of the days. Ash Wednesday is the first day in the Lenten season, and has traditionally been a day of repentance, of remorse for sin symbolized by the imposition of ashes, but in that imposition is the sign of hope, for the ashes are imposed in the sign of the cross--the means by which our sins were atoned for. Ash Wednesday falls exactly 46 days before Easter and of course it moves around in the calendar because it is linked to Easter which moves around in the calendar. Why? Because Easter is in turn linked to Jewish festival of Passover, when Jesus was crucified, in all likelihood on April 7 A.D. 30. The Jews followed a lunar calendar which of course made the months shorter, and so Lent and Easter are moveable feasts. They are linked as beginning and end of a process of repentance and forgiveness.
Today, above all days, is the time to talk about repentance, which means ever so much more than just saying one is sorry, or even having regrets. The Greek word we translate repentance metanoia refers to a volte face, an about face, a complete change in direction or behavioral pattern, and from the very first Jesus associated this concept with the Good News of the Kingdom--"repent and hear the Good News, for the Kingdom of God is at hand" (Mk. 1.15) seems to have been a summary of his early message, and as such it was much like John the Baptizer's message as well.
During a normal Ash Wednesday service you will hear the words--'dust you are, and to dust you shall return' or even 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust'. These words are also part of the funeral ritual. Why this somber reminder about our mortality? Well for the very good reason that we will one day go to meet our Maker, ready or not, and it would be better to be ready, than not! The reminder of our mortality is meant to help us renounce our immorality, to repent of our sins, and as the old Southern sign bluntly said--'Get right with God, or get left by God'.
Unfortunately, in our current culture we would like short-cut salvation--- forgiveness without repentance, salvation without a change of life, grace without gratitude or a change in attitude. In a God-forsaken life, there may even be an attempt to atone for one's own sins. We like to say "let me make it up to you", but alas that is seldom possible, even with ordinary mistakes, and totally impossible if we are talking about sin. One of the most powerful movies I have seen in years is the recent Oscar nominated film--'Atonement'. It is a truly post-modern film, all about a young girl with a vivid imagination who is rather jealous of her older sister and her relationship with her boy friend who works on the English estate where the girls live, but who is 'beneath the station of the girl's family'.
It is a typical class clash English drama in some ways, but there is much more too it. For the younger sister Bryony would like to have this young man for herself, but when she is spurned, and something goes terribly wrong on the estate (a teenage girl is raped) Bryony imagines that she saw the young lad doing it, she accuses him, and he is carted off to jail, ruining her older sister's relationship and hopes.
The rest of the movie is consumed with the tale of atonement, or shall we say attempted do it yourself atonement. Bryony becomes a nurse during WWI, thinking she can work her sin off by good deeds. She attempts reconciliation with her sister, but this does not work. She attempts to wash her hands of the affair, but this does not work. She writes a clever novel in which there is a happier ending to the story than there was in real life, 'to make amends' 'to make it better' as she says, but alas, the sin is still not atoned for. Like Lady MacBeth trying to get the blood off her hands from a murder and crying out in the night 'out out darn spot', there is, and can be no self-atonement!
Let me be perfectly clear---neither good intentions, nor good efforts, nor good deeds can atone for sin--only repenting, turning to God who has atoned for sin in the death of his Son Jesus, and receiving forgiveness from Him can break the endless cycle of futile and fatal attempts at self-justification and self-atonement.
It is more than fitting that at the beginning of Lent we would repent, in reminder that at the end of Lent our means of forgiveness shows up in the person of Jesus, and through his atoning death on the cross. Only God in Christ can not merely forgive sins, but make the sinner whole. Only he has the grace which can change a sinner into a saint. So as we have the ashes imposed we remember or mortality and our immorality and realize that 'tempus fugit' and there is need that we get right with God before we go 'gentle into that good night' as Dylan Thomas put it.
In our text for this evening we have the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, an appropriate story as April 15 is coming. The story is a story of contrasts between a pious Pharisee, who is no hypocrite, and a penitent tax collector, who knows he is a sinner. The problem with the Pharisee is not merely that he measures himself by comparing himself with other less moral human beings, thus not measuring himself by God's absolute standard. The problem with the Pharisee is that he is a good pious person, whose piety is getting in the way of his repenting, as he thinks his relationship with God is just fine. The Pharisee knows his need for God and for repentance, and does not make a show of listing his many good deeds, as if to impress God. This word just in--- God is not easily impressed.
The tax collector, who knows he has defrauded many, and must come to God 'just as I am without one plea' throws himself on the mercy of God, and shows all the signs of true repentance. Notice the difference in the posture of the two men--one stands near to the altar with hands uplifted looking up to God, the other stands at a distance beats his breast and dares not look up into heaven, in remorse for sin, daring not to look into the face of the Almighty. One prays 'I thank you God I am not like other people--evil doers.. or even this tax collector' The other prays, 'God have mercy on me a sinner'. One reminds God he fasts and prays more than required, the other comes without one plea to the throne of mercy and grace.
Jesus concludes the parable by informing us that it is not the former man, who is no hypocrite but thinks his piety has established his claim on God's blessing and mercy, but rather the latter man who goes away set right or justified in the sight of God. True repentance and a turning around of life and behavior, leads to divine forgiveness from a merciful God. And the miracle is not merely reconciliation with God and forgiveness, but one begins to become either for the first time, or once more, one's best self.
Today is the day to repent of your sins and be shriven and forgiven. Today is the day to confess you have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, you have neglected to do things you ought to have done (sins of omission), and you have done things you ought not to have done (sins of commission). All of us, all of us, as Paul says have sinned and fallen short of God's highest and best for us. Today is the day to repent and receive the Good News that in Christ you are both forgiven, and given a chance to be a new person, make a new start. Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up. And may I just add, for our nation as well, in the throws of a war, and on the cusp of a crucial national election, we as an American people need to get our house in order, and kneel once more before the throne of grace and receive mercy and forgiveness from Almighty God. Now is the appointed time and needed hour. AMEN
Tour St. John Lateran--- the Papal Basilica
Check out this tour of various parts of the Papal Basilica known as St. John Lateran, one of the oldest church complexes in the world.
http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_giovanni/vr_tour/index-en.html
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New Year's Resolve: Jesus and Money Part Thirteen
http://www.brazospress.com/Book.asp?isbn=978-1-58743-274-3
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/isbn=1587432749/bakerbookhouseA
So Fat Tuesday is coming, and hard on its heels Lent-- the season for repentance, amendment of life, changing one's lifestyle, fasting, and the like. In other words, the perfect season to get our Christian house in order before Easter. And clearly we need to do so. When even non-Christians can see the problems, it must be pretty obvious. Consider the words of Don Henley---
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"And we pray to our Lord,
Who we know is American,
He reigns from on high;
He speaks to us through middlemen
And he shepherds his flock
We sing out and praise his name
He supports us in war
He presides over football games,
And the right will prevail
And our troubles will be resolved
We hold faith above all,
Unless Money or Sex are involved..."
Don Henley--'Frail Grasp of the Big Picture'
He has seen the prosperity preaching church and culture up close and personal. But in case, you would prefer to get one more glimpse to be sure--- consider the way the church reacted to the little book that roared--- 'The Prayer of Jabez'.
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1 Chron. 4.9-10 could be forgiven for being called the text that roared, once Bruce Wilkinson got his hands on it and wrote the little book The Prayer of Jabez which was released in 2000 and sold 9 millions copies in its first two years in print (over 17 million now), becoming one of the best selling Christian books of all time. But what exactly does 1 Chron. 4.9-10 say that caused such a sensation? In the midst of apparently innocuous genealogies we find these two verses which read as follows: "Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez saying: 'I gave birth to him in pain.' [the word Jabez sounds like the Hebrew word for pain]. Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, 'Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.' And God granted his request." That's all there is to the story and the context. It is preceded and followed by unrelated genealogy.
What should we make of this brief narrative? First of all we should notice that the theme of the narrative is pain--pain in child birth, and the prayer to be free from pain (which may imply Jabez was in pain at the time of the prayer), and the name of Jabez which sounds like the Hebrew word for pain. Perhaps here a more literal rendering with some Hebrew transliteration will help----
'Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name 'Y'btz' saying 'because I bore him in pain' (b'tzb). Jabez called on the God of Israel saying 'Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm, that it would not hurt me' (tzby). And God granted what he asked.'
The word play in this text is obvious and typical of such Hebrew texts.
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Notice that our man is called Jabez rather than Jazeb, which would be more nearly the Hebrew word for pain. This seems to be the prayer of a rather poor or indigent person, who does not have enough land, and is in danger as well. Nothing suggests that when the prayer was answered God had made Jabez a wealthy man because nothing suggests he was requesting wealth at all. What he may well have been requesting is simply adequate land and safety to make a living and take care of his family! What these two little verses of course do suggest is that God answers prayer, particularly prayers of his faithful people who are crying out for basic things like the ability to make a living or basic safety. Nothing here suggests God intends to make the rich richer, simply because they have asked, trusting God is capable of giving such material blessings. In other words, unfortunately the 'prayer of Jabez' has been turned into a golden fleece of sorts, a talisman, a healing hanky by those eager to live the lifestyle of the well to do.
Raise your hand if you are guilty of reading this text in this way. Raise your hand if you are living this way, even if you haven't read this text. Raise your hand if you would like to live the lifestyles of the rich and famous, or at least the scaled down ones promised by the prosperity preachers touting your best life immediately. Raise your hand if you find Fat Tuesday much nearer your heart's desire than Ash Wednesday.
In this series of posts we have tried to tease your minds into active and critical thought about what a Christian perspective, a Biblical perspective on money and wealth ought to look like. It is my hope that by now, some of this has begun to sink in, and like good yeast in the dough, begun to work change from within your hearts. If this has happened even in a few cases, I am content... for now.
Attempting to Overcome A Tempting--- a Sermon
Last week in Chapel Dr. Ben Witherington gave the message. Here is the audio for you to check out (link). Enjoy
http://asburyseminary.blogs.com/
Neither Clergy nor Laity-- a NT Vision of Ministry
(This is an edited version of the lecture I gave twice in Houston this past week, with good response).
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Almost all forms of ancient religion were all about priests, temples, and sacrifices. This was as true of Greek religion and Roman religion, as true of Babylonian religion as Assyrian religion, and it was true of Biblical religion as well--- just read the book of Leviticus for example. In Jesus' day Jewish religion focused on Torah, Temple, and territory--- the three Ts. But something radical happened in the Christ event, and it was a game changer.
You see the main reason you need priests and temples is because you are required to offer sacrifices to appease the deity, to atone for sin, to thank God, and so on. But what happens if God in person offers a once for all perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world, past, present or future? What happens if instead of a hereditary or even an appointed priesthood, a priest comes along who not only offers a perfect sacrifice, but he is a forever priest, without successors, without descendents, without necessity of having another one?
What if there
comes a day when, as Jesus himself said "neither on Mt. Gerizim
nor on Mt. Zion shall we worship, but
wherever and whenever you find people worshipping in Spirit and in truth...",
what if the nature of worship itself has changed due to Jesus the game
changer? What if it is true that on no
spot on earth can you find the inner sanctum of God, the Holy of Holies,
because now it is in heaven, and our high priest is there at this very moment
interceding for us, pleading the blood he sacrificed once for all, once for all
time?
Well friends, if all this is true, and it is, then it has to change the whole way we look at ministry and at the people of God, and the writers of the NT understood this, even though the church in subsequent generations often did all they could to go back to the OT system of doing things. And indeed, that is precisely what you see going on in the Orthodox and Catholic traditions--its all about priests, temples, sacrifices. And of course, among other things, one of the drastic implications of that hermeneutical approach to Biblical religion is that women need not apply, for in the OT scheme of things women can't be priests, though there were priestesses all over the ancient near east in various non-Biblical forms of religion. As you will see my main point is this---when worship changes so does ministry. So lets start with some definitions, some first things.
The Greek word laos from which we get the term laity simply means the people of God. It is used this way over and over again in the NT, sometimes of Israel sometimes of those who are in Christ, but in neither case is it used to refer to a particular kind or class of believing persons who are set apart from the 'clergy'. And about that word clergy, it is not a Biblical word at all. Webster's tells us it comes to us from the Medieval French word clerc (13th century), but in fact ultimately the term comes from the Greek κλῆρος - klēros, "a lot", "that which is assigned by lot" (allotment) or metaphorically, "inheritance". So it partially has a Biblical root, but no persons in the NT are called kleroi to distinguish a class of ministers. And there is a good reason for this.
First
of all the reason is that Christ and his sacrifice has torn down the wall not
only between God and an alienated and lost humanity, but also the wall between
Jew and Greek, between slave and free, between male and female, and yes between
priests and ordinary folk. There is no
priesthood as a class of individual ministers in the NT.
There are in fact two priesthoods--- the unique heavenly high priesthood
of Christ, as described in glorious technicolor in Hebrews, and the priesthood
of all believers as described in 1 Peter and elsewhere. In other words, no one on earth is or can be
a priest like Jesus, and on the other hand, every believer is part of the
'kingdom of priests' foreseen by Moses, and actualized by Jesus.
And so it is that the author of 1 Peter is not saying something novel when he throws down the gauntlet and says to his Christian audience "but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, so that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light" ( 1 Pet. 2.9). This friends is the Magna Carta of Christian identity and Christian freedom, and among other things it means we are all laity, and we are all priests. We will unpack the implications of this wonderful verse in a moment, but first we need to answer a question--- if what I say is true, what went wrong with Christian religion, and when did it happen? Why do we continue to have a clergy club and laity conferences for non-clergy? I'm glad you asked.
What happened, already beginning in the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. is the same thing that happened to God's people as recorded in 1 Samuel--- they wanted to be like other nations, other peoples. They wanted a king and a kingdom--and of course you remember that God obliged them and gave them Saul, not exactly what they were hoping for. Be careful what you wish for, as God may let you have it--and then he will let you have it (in another sense), when you use it to distance people from God. Well the church, especially after it became a licit religion in the 4th century A.D. thanks to Constantine, the church longed to be like the other religions with priests, temples and sacrifices, and more to the point they longed to be like God's OT people with priests, temples, and sacrifices, and they got what they wished for. The OT hermeneutic was applied to NT ministry and so it was that ministers became priests, churches became temples, the Lord's Supper became a sacrifice, Sunday became the Sabbath sacrificial giving became tithing--- all in defiance of what Peter says and means in 1 Pet. 2.9. And of course the ultimate irony happened when Peter who wrote 1 Peter was turned into the first Pope--- and he is still surprised about that!!
But in the NT Sunday is not the Sabbath, it's the Lord's Day celebrating the day that Christ arose. And the Lord's Supper is not a literal sacrifice of any kind, it is a reminder of Christ's once for all sacrifice until he comes again. And neither apostles nor prophets nor elders nor deacons nor teachers nor evangelists nor any other sort of special group of ministers in the NT are labeled some sort of kleros, God's priestly portion. No indeed, in the wake of the once for all sacrifice, each one of us has become our own priest and so Paul exhorts us "brothers and sisters I beseech you by the mercies of God to present yourselves as living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God for this is your spiritual worship" (Rom. 12.1-2). We are all called to offer ourselves up to God in praise and adoration and exaltation and jubilation--all of us. And we are not called to do the Moses thing when God requires this of us. You remember what happened at the call of Moses--- he used call forwarding. He said--- "Here I am Lord, take my brother!!"
It is the view of the writers of the NT that Jew and Gentile united in Christ is the people of God, the royal priesthood, the chosen portion of God, and it is the job of all of us, all of us, to be a light to the nations, to be winsome so we might win some for Christ, to be priests offering this world and all that is in it back to God for as the psalmist says--- "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. With the call to come to Christ comes a call to ministry, and it does not come to just some of us. It comes with the territory. But what, practically speaking, does this mean? Should we all be quitting our day jobs and dedicating ourselves to the ministries of Word, order, and sacrament? Well no, as it turns out.
Paul in 1 Cor. 12 puts it this way--- "now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, gifts of helping, gifts of guidance or administration, and of different kinds of tongues" (vs. 27-30). Too often the discussion of spiritual gifting begins and ends with a discussion of the gifts themselves (see vss. 7-11) rather than of the persons given the gifts. This is a mistake, but it is right to emphasize as Paul does that "to each is given some gift, some manifestation of the Spirit for the common good". No Christian is giftless, and none are exempt therefore from ministry in some form. And in fact what Paul is telling us that the roles we play in ministry are or should be determined largely by the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit decides who gets what gifts in the body of Christ. It's not a matter of our going to the Holy Spirit super-store and picking them out.
Let us concentrate first on the fact that God gave certain persons to the church--- apostles, prophets, teachers, and so on. And no only so, Paul means that there is something of a hierarchial order of leadership. He says first apostles, second prophets, and so on. Just because we are all called to do some sort of ministry doesn't mean that we are all called to do the same tasks, or that we have all been equally gifted to do any and all tasks or that we are all called to be leaders. This is false. There will always be leaders and followers, but all of God's people are gifted and graced to do something.
Now Paul is not talking about natural abilities though certainly God can use our talents as well. He is talking about Spirit endowed and induced gifts and graces. One of the great problems we do have in the Church is a failure to help all Christians spiritually discern what God is calling and gifting them to do. Indeed, the old laity/clergy distinction has impeded such a process. The assumption is that if you have paid clergy then the laity are off the hook, basically except for the giving of tithes and offerings of course. This is quite false and to some degree this problem has been furthered by the well-intentioned commitment to professionalism when it comes to ministry.
Don't get me wrong. I am all for us being not only called, and gifted and trained and education to do the best possible job we can for the Lord. I believe in all of those things, and I don't believe we are helped by a sort of anti-intellectual spirit that is suspicious of Christian education or thinks that if one has the Bible and the Spirit one is fully equipped to do ministry in our complex world. This is almost without exception false. But that anti-intellectual spirit plagues Protestants, even in the setting of a seminary. I once had a student who came up to me and said "I don't know why I need to learn all this stuff, I can just get up in the pulpit and Spirit will give me utterance." My reply was succinct--- "Yes, Charlie, you can do that, but you shouldn't. You need to give the Spirit more to work with, more mental furniture to use and move around."
What about the distinction between part-time and full-time ministry with the laity doing the former and the clergy the latter? There is certainly nothing in the Bible that supports such a notion, and part of the problem is the way one envisions ministry. Raising children in a godly way is a ministry. Helping people with their finances is a ministry. Building homes, making clothes, selling groceries is a ministry. Any good deed, anything that can be done to the glory of God and for the edification of God's people and the world is a ministry. Our problem is that we have defined ministry too narrowly, and then jealousy fought over who gets to do what.
Frankly I have run into too many ordained clergy who think: 1) it is their job to do most all the ministry (though they complain bitterly they are over-taxed and under-appreciated); and 2) instead of "equipping the saints for ministry" they have in fact disabled, discontinued, even destroyed the ministry of those who are not, like them, ordained clergy. What is all too often put in the place of every member a minister is the pastor-American idol syndrome, the pastor super-star model, which feeds on America's love of the cult of personality.
This is not a
good, much less a godly approach to ministry and it leads to Humpty-Dumpty
syndrome--- ministers who put themselves up on a pedestal and are bound to have
a great fall. Remember Ted Haggard? Remember Jim Bakker? For everyone one of them, there are hundreds
of not well known clergy who fall into the same trap. And of course a lot of this has to do with
people in ministry with: 1) serious ego deficiencies and problems with feelings
of low self-worth; 2) people in ministry
who are tremendously talented and enormously spiritually and emotionally
immature; 3) people in ministry whose
family life is not stable and whose most intimate relationships are not what
they ought to be. And then of course there are men in ministry who feel threatened by women in ministry, as if women are encroaching on their private domain. But the problem in the church is not strong, gifted, called, ministering women. The problem is weak men who can't handle strong women.
What about the issue of ordained ministers? This is indeed Biblical as can be seen from Acts and the Pastoral Epistles and various other portions of the NT. Paul did indeed ordain and commission Timothy and Titus and others to be apostolic co-workers, evangelists, teachers etc. Why do we need an ordination process before doing ministry? Well of course it is not absolutely necessary in every case, but the reason it is a good and healthy thing if you are set apart for the ministry of Word and sacrament and ordering of the church's life is because the church needs to help you go through the process of discernment about your calling and gifts and graces, and the church needs to recognize and pronouncement the benediction, the Amen on what you are called and gifted to do. Why? Because we are all part of the Body of Christ, and the gifts are given "for the common good" not for our own personal fulfillment or aggrandizement. And then too, individuals can be enthusiastic and dead wrong about being called and gifted to do this or that task of ministry, or alternatively they can be resistant and truculent like Moses, and in fact they have been called to do significant ministry work. Ministry is the work which builds up the body of Christ, not puffs up the individual as Paul so aptly tells us in 1 Corinthians. And frankly, ministry is just hard work.
Are there any
ministry tasks that those we today call lay persons should not do, at least
from time to time? My answer to this
question is no. We need more preachers,
more teachers, more evangelists, more Stephen's ministers, more soup kitchen
workers, more doctors, not less. But
again because of the nature of the ministries of Word, order and
sacrament, because they are the very
lifeblood which keeps the congregation going and on task more training, more
education, more full-time commitment is
required for these tasks. As the Bible
suggests, to those to whom more is given, more is required, and if you have been
given the gift of regular performance of the ministries of Word, order, and
sacrament, you need to study to find yourself approved, just as a medical
doctor has to commit himself to life long learning to be a good doctor. Sometimes preachers say to me "I'm no expert in the Bible, but I preach each Sunday'. My response to this is--- if you are not the expert in the Bible for your people, who is? I mean would you go to a dentist who said "I'm no expert in drilling, but hey, let's start with you!" In an increasingly Biblically illiterate culture we need more, not less experts preaching and teaching God's Word.
As I bring this lecture to a close, I want to go back to the glorious vision of Peter and how he conceives us all. Let us dig into this passage in 1 Peter 2 in a little more depth. John Muir once said we look at life from the backside of the tapestry and what we see normally and on a daily basis is loose threads, tangled knots, a large canvas. But occasionally the light penetrates the tapestry and we get a glimpse of the larger design of God as he weaves all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to purpose (noting that Rom. 8.28 does not in fact say in the Greek, according to HIS purpose, though that may be implied and is true anyway).
In 1 Peter 2.9-10 Christians are seen as a chosen race, a holy people for God's possession-- Exhibit A, revealing the mighty acts of God. Indeed they are chosen for the specific purpose of proclaiming God's mighty acts. What has happened to believers has happened so that these acts might be proclaimed, and thus God be glorified. Redemption is for believer's succor, but it is also for God's glory. God is the one who called persons from the darkness of sin and spiritual blindness into his marvelous and everlasting light. There is nothing here about an old Israel that is being replaced by a new one. To the contrary, Peter's view is that the one people of God has kept going all along, only now the true expression of them is found in Jew and Gentile united in Christ. This is more of an eschatological completionist schema than a replacement schema. But Exod. 19.6 is being appropriated and applied to the community of Christ here.
One phrase calls for close scrutiny in vs. 9. Is Basileion hierateuma an adjective and a noun or two nouns? Does it mean: 1) royal priesthood; or 2) house of the King, body of priests; or 3) a priesthood in service of the king; 4) a kingdom of priests; 5) a group of kings, a body of priests? In favor of 4) is the OT background--Ex. 19.6 as translated in the LXX. The Hebrew reads "a kingdom of priests" but the LXX translates it as two substantives, two nouns in apposition to one another--kings and priests It may seem odd to stick two nouns side by side, but if the LXX could do it, so could Peter. Now, if view 4) is the right rendering, it does not imply believers are kings, only priests in service of the king. Against view 5) we may argue that there is no precedent for the word Basileion meaning a "group of kings". Against views 1) and 3) we must argue: a) if Basileion was an adjective, it would normally follow its noun as eklektos follows genos and hagios follows ethnos; b) In the only other use of Basileion in the NT (Lk. 7.25), it means palace or King's house, and is not an adjective, and in parallel Hellenistic literature it is normally a noun (cf. 2 Macc. 2.17; Philo, de Sobr. 66l and de Abra. 56); c) What precedes this in vs. 5, a reference to a spiritual house, may suggest a parallel here-- king's house. Thus, perhaps we should see this as two nouns in apposition, and if so, view 2) "house of the king, body of priests" will be the best translation. If the LXX and Hebrew background is in view, as the other terms in the list may suggest, perhaps we should translate a kingdom of priests or even a royal priesthood, because the other four honorific phrases here involve a noun and a modifier. If the latter it is simply affirming that all believers are priests, if the former it stresses believers are both collectively God's house, and his priests. Whichever translation we go for Howard Marshall is clearly right in stressing "There is no justification here or elsewhere in the New Testament for labeling certain people in the church 'priests'. If some Christians are set apart to perform the functions of ministers in the church, they are not to be regarded as priests different in kind from that of all Christians....The term 'priest' should be dropped as a way of designating ministers of the Gospel."[1]
Notice the contrast in vs. 10 "you who were once not a people are now a people". Here E.J. Selwyn urges: "Peter's words conveyed to people so placed was that they now once again belonged to a community which claimed their loyalty; and it was something which could give all their instincts of patriotism full satisfaction. In short, the term connotes in Greek, community. In the mixed society of the Roman Empire, where freedom of association was suspect and subject to restrictive laws, as in modern despotic states, this sense of community must have worn very thin, and produced a widespread feeling of homelessness."[2] These words from Hosea originally referred to Jews, and there is not reason why they can't refer primarily to Jewish Christians here either.
Notice as well the 'now' in this text. Peter emphasizes both what God has now done and what he will yet do. To be a people, a community, means believers have experienced the mercy of God. Many commentators think that vs. 10 could not have been spoken of Jews. Peter can only be talking about Gentiles here who are now included in God's new chosen race. This is forgetting that Peter's view is that when Jews have rejected Christ they at least temporarily cease to be part of the people of God (cf. Rom. 11). Peter is here quoting Hos.1.6-7 and probably Hos. 2.25b as well and these texts were certainly being applied to Jews there, as they likely are here as well. What we have seen in this section of the discourse is the very sort of tour de force use of the OT as a basis for argumentation, loaded with allusions and partial quotes tailored to fit the context here, and as such it rivals what we find in Rom. 9-11 and the use of the Scripture there. For Peter it was essential to ground his argument in such a way that he could say, as he does in vs. 6 "for it is contained in Scripture that....". This argument is brought to a close by a reminder to the audience that they have a high calling, they are a temple, and indeed they are a royal priesthood, and as such they are God's option in their own pagan environment, and so they must live in a fashion that makes them good witnesses, good neighbors, good people.
AND SO?
You are all called to be God's option in an increasingly pagan culture. That is who we all are, and the clarion call for all God's people, who are all both 'laity' and a royal priesthood, has gone out that we must fulfill our high calling to spread abroad the Good News of Jesus Christ, each according to what we have been called, gifted, graced, blessed, educated, trained to be and do.
In my view,
every single Christian needs Christian training, and all the more so now as our
culture and even our churches become more and more Biblically illiterate. But hear me clearly--- we are not called to
dumb down the Gospel, we are called to boil up the people. We are not called to put the Gospel cookies
on the bottom shelf, we are called to tease people's minds into active thought
so that their reach will extend further than their current grasp.
We need a total mobilization of the Body of Christ, God's salvation army for never in our life times has the need been greater, the call been clearer, and the commission more obvious--- Go, said Jesus, and make disciples of all the nations. But if we are to claim the world as our parish, then we will indeed need all hands on deck, every member of Christ, a minister of Christ. Claim your birth rite as part of the royal priesthood of God and do not exchange it for anything--- not for anything. AMEN
[1] Marshall, 1 Peter, p. 75.
[2] Selwyn, First Peter, p. 101 col. 2.
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